Netflix 1, Blockbuster 0

We bought a portable DVD player to supplement the ... um ... stationary player? ... this past Christmas. This got me off my duff to finally sign up for Netflix.

The experience was pretty much perfect. The next postal day after I signed up I had three movies in my mailbox. Over my vacation time at the end of the year I consumed mass quantities, going thru about 18 movies over a three week period. In every case it took one postal day from when I put a movie in the outgoing mail until it was received at Netflix and one more postal day until I had a new movie in my mailbox. Turns out there is a Netflix distribution center down here on the Third Coast.

Then came the Superbowl commercial for Blockbuster Online. It looked like a good deal. Cheaper by $3/month. And on top of the 3-at-a-time all-you-can-eat I could get two movies a month from the local Blockbuster store. Seemed like a no-brainer.

So I signed up for the trial period (had a code for a four week free trial).

The experience couldn't have been worse. One postal day after I signed up I had zero movies in the mail. It took three days to get the first one from them to me. And it wasn't the top movie on my queue. The other two trickled in over another four days. And again, not the first one on the queue. Over the course of the next four weeks I managed to get a grand total of 4 DVDs. There are two more that are on the way but won't be here until maybe today or tomorrow.

I'm at the end of my free four weeks now and I've kicked Blockbuster to the curb. The movies that are on their way will go back unwatched.

Netflix has kindly kept my information including my queue. A few minor updates to remove the few discs I received from Blockbuster and I'm back in business.

At some point Netflix will be overtaken by events. The ability to have movies delivered by wire is coming soon. But it's been coming soon for ... what ... twenty years? Until then, Netflix has got this business down pat. --Aging

Update: Forgot to mention: The Netflix website is also superior. Once I told it to remember me (i.e., set a cookie), it remembered me. The Blockbuster site is either broken or using a cookie that expires in about 30 minutes. When I moved over I took about 90 minutes to build up my queue of 100 movies on Blockbuster. During that time I was forced to relogin several times. In addition there are a lot of usability differences between the two sites. In almost every case Netflix is easier to use. The only thing I like better on Blockbuster is I can see the average rating from other customers even after I have set my own rating.